The influence of Jola Eegima'a on french in Senegal

Gaston Berger University of Saint -Louis
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
English Department
Master 1

Topic:

The Influence of Djola Ee_gimaa on French in

Sene_gal

OPTION: LINGUISTICS / GRAMMAR

PRESENTED BY: SUPERVISOR:

Sébastien TENDENG Pr Mawéja MBAYA

ACADEMIC YEAR 2007-2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication ..3

Acknowledgements 4

List of Charts, Maps, Tables and Appendices 5

List of Codes and Abbreviations 6

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 7

Chapter One: BACKGROUNDS 11

Eegimaa in Casamance 12

French in Casamance 14

Chapter Two: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 16

Eegimaa Description 17

French Description 19

Languages in Contact 21

Review of Related Literature 23

Chapter Three: THE FIELDWORK 26

The Field of Research 27

The Research Population 27

The Sample 28

Tools of Investigation 28

Chapter Four: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION 29

The Corpus Presentation 30

Morphophonological Analysis 34

Reporting the Findings 43

GENERAL CONCLUSION 44

BIBLIOGRAPHY 46

APPENDICES 49

DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to:

my dear parents Fidele, Rosalie Bassène and all my brothers and sisters. for their cherishing love and constant concern for my success. Boundless thanks for all.

and

Patrick COLY (1979-2005) who did not have the chance to defend his Master dissertation. He was tak en away from our affection by the suddenness of death. May God, Lord of peace and forgiveness welcome him in His Holy Paradise.

Amen.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

«The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest infields of green grass and leads me to quite pools offresh water». Psalm 23:1-2

My first thanks go to my dear parents Fidéle and Rosalie Bassène for their cherishing love and constant concern for my success and to my uncle and godfather Léon Bassène for all those years spent under his shelter. Boundless thanks for all.

My special thanks go to Professor Mawéja Mbaya for accepting to supervise this work. He has made numerous proposals for improvement; both in regard to the overall structure of the work and to countless details, and have painstakingly read through the various drafts from the proposal.

I owe also a very special debt of gratitude to all my professors at Gaston Berger University: Dr Abdoulaye Barry for his useful linguistic classes, Dr Omar Fall for his fruitful grammar courses, Pr Baydallaye Kane, Dr Badara Sall and all the others who, from the first year were always present.

The following relatives, friends and colleagues have read the whole or substantial parts of the manuscript in various stages and have made valuable suggestions: Pr Pierre Marie Sambou, Dr Serge Sagna and Dr Alain-Christian Bassène for their continuous support and invaluable advice through all the stages of my writing, Michel Mbodji, Cécilia Faye, Carmen Ndour and all the members of the «Gadiaga Family».

Thanks are also due to Etienne Bassène and Louis Eketbo Bassène who provided me with valuable information on Eegimaa people and their culture.

I am much indebted to the people at the CEM of Enampor for all their support and constant availability. My heartfelt thanks also go to all those who have helped in the fieldwork: Rolande Virginie Sagna, Amiral Bassène, Thibaut Bassène and all the members of A.E.R.M.A (U.C.A.D/Dakar).

Last but not least, my special thanks go to my roommates Joseph Senghor and my cousin and brother Pierre Bassène, with whom I shared years of peaceful neighbouring. My thanks also go to Jules Francois Diatta who has been a constant source of encouragement.

All my classmates (The Class 2003-2004) and the residents of G7G and G7E are associated with these thanks all without any exception and all those who knowingly or otherwise have contributed in making this work what it is.

LIST OF CHARTS, MAPS, TABLES

AND APPENDICES

Charts

Chart 1: Classification of the Djola group languages 9

Maps

Map 1: The location of Mof çvi within Senegal 10

Map 2: The Eegimaa speaking area 10

Map 3: The migration from Burofay towards Mof çvi 13

Tables

Table 1: Eegimaa phonological consonants 17

Table 2: Eegimaa phonological vowels 18

Table 3: IPA chart for French consonants 19

Table 4: French phonological vowels 20

Table 5: Age of the informants 32

Table 6: Sex of the informants 32

Table 7: Level of study of the informants 32

Table 8: Languages spoken by the informants 33

Table 9: Mastery of Eegimaa 33

Appendices

Appendix 1: Portrait of Affiledjo Manga the last «king-priest-of-the-rain» 49

Appendix 2: Questionnaire 50

Appendix 3: List of the informants 51

List of codes and abbreviations

(=) : means «corresponds»

: means «becomes»

[+ATR] : Advance d Tongue Root [-ATR] : Non-Advanced Tongue Root

A.E.R.M.A : Association des Etudiants Ressortissants de Mof çviA.N.S : Archives Nationales du Sénégal (National Archives of Senegal)

Aff. : Affix

C : Consonant

I.P.A : International Phonetic Alphabet

L1 : First language

L2 : Second language

× : means «nothing»

Rad. : Radical

Suff. : Suffix

U.C.A.D : Université Cheikh Anta Diop (University of Dakar) V : Vowel

+v : Voiced

-v : Voiceless

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Djola is a linguistic unit which, with Mandjako, Mankagna and Balanta, constitutes the Bak sub-group of the West-Atlantic group, which belongs to the great Niger-Congo family. It was classified in the West-Atlantic group by Westermann and J. H. Greenberg . But French linguists Delafosse and Lavergne de Tressan classified Djola

1

in what they called the Senegalo -Guinean group . The classification of Greenberg, until now up to date, is the one retained for this research work.

Djola is spoken in The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. It is the language of the Djola people who occupy the area which extends on these three countries. All over this linguistic shelf, Djola is respectively in contact with English, French, Portuguese and other local languages.

Basing ourselves on the truism according to which when one or more languages are in contact, they influence one another, we have chosen to work on the influence of Djola on French in Senegal. In one word, this work will be concerned with the study of the influence of a national language, namely Djola, on the official one, French, in Senegal.

Senegal is a linguistic shelf where many languages are in contact. From this contact arises the phenomenon of mutual-influence but we will concentrate our work more on the study of the influence of Djola on French than the contrary.

The Djola language, according to Sambou (1979), comprises around fifteen dialects². Among this set of dialects, our choice laid on that commonly known as «Eegimaa». This choice is justified by the fact that these people were in early contact with the colonizers and that's the same for their language. Another reason is that their location is very enclosed and thus less exposed to the phenomenon of Wolofisation.

The dialect was variously named by the linguists who worked on it: Palmeri called it Bandial, Doneux, Gusilay, while Odile Tendeng, a native speaker, labeled it Endungo at the end of a long term investigation.

To find a name in which all the speakers of the linguistically delimited entity would recognize themselves, such was one of the concerns which animated the researchers. In spite of the provided efforts, it appears today that these denominations do

¹ Pierre-Marie Sambou. 1979. Ç Djola Kaasaa Esuulaalur: Phonologie, Morphophonologie et

Morphologie È. Thèse de de 3 ème

doctorat cycle, Dakar: Université de Dakar, Page 4

² Refer to Chart 1, page 3 .

Bayot group Proper Djola

not cover the whole of the speech community, certain villages feeling indicated by none of the three names. In order to answer this concern, the name Eegimaa was selected designating the people of this dialect.

Indeed, to be distinguished from other Djola people, the native speakers call themselves: «ájoola eegimaa», which means: a Djola who uses the expression «eegimaa» to say: «here is what I say to you ". And this expression is very recurrent in the speech of this community. Apart from these authors, we can find other people naming it «Djola Essil» or even people from that area calling it «Guláay» or «Gujólay gamoyen».

In front of this situation of uncertainty, we have chosen to label it «Eegimaa» because it is the one mostly used in the academic sphere (Bassène 2001 and Bassène 2003) and we would not depart from the rule. Even for the spelling of the word «Djola» itself, we noticed many types (Diola, Dyola, Jóola and Jola), but we will use «Djola» in this work.

We found an interest on this topic and it lays on the fact that not only it is one in which we will be pioneers on researching and findings from this work will be original ones but also because it will allow us to study the contact between local and official languages in a multilingual context.

To bring a true contribution to the present field of language contact in multilingual societies, we have conducted a fieldwork in which we tried to bring as much reliable data as possible. We went to «Mofçvi³» in the department of Ziguinchor, to Dakar and Saint-Louis where we found a high concentration of Eegimaa people.

To collect these data, we proceeded by means of a questionnaire in which people were asked to give their identification (names, age, sex, address and country of birth) and also answered a limited set of questions such as their mother tongue, other languages they speak or understand and their level of study⁴ etc.

Apart from the questionnaire, we observed people speaking and chose a sample of fifty persons (twenty five [25] from Ziguinchor and the remaining 25 others from Dakar and Saint-Louis) whom we interviewed by means of a voice recorder. The people interviewed were all native speakers of Eegimaa aged between 15 and 66. All of them went to school for at least 7 years.

³ «Mof» is the word for land, soil and «ávi» stands for both King and hundred or cent franc CFA but here, it is for the first meaning that prevails. Thus «Mof çvi» means the king's land and is the original location of the Eegimaa people (for more information see Map 1 and 2, page 4).

⁴ For more details see Appendix 2: Questionnaire, page 44.

This work will be divided into four main chapters. In Chapter One, we will present these two languages giving their historical background in the field of research. Then in Chapter Two, we will give a theoretical approach concerning the description of the two languages of our study, all the theories about languages in contact and the inventory of works related in some way or other to ours. In Chapter Three, we will present the fieldwork and show in what way we have conducted the data collec tion. And at last, in Chapter Four, we will analyze the data we gathered during the fieldwork before giving the findings and then conclude.

Chart 1: Classification of the Djola group languages (^ÒBAK^Ó LANGUAGES SUBDIVISION: Djola group)

DJOLA GROUP

Karone group Kwataay group Central Djola

Fogny group Kaassa group Ejamat group Gusilay group

*Fogny *Huluf *Ejamat *Gusilay

*Eegimaa

*Buluf *Ayun *Her

*Kombo *Selek *Elun

*Narang *Esuulaalur

*Fluvial

*Bliss

SOURCE: Translation and adaptation from Hopkins 2005, page 7.

Map 1: Localisation of Mof çvi whithin Senegal

SOURCE: Bassène, Mamadou. 2003, page3.

Map 2: The Eegimaa speaking area

SOURCE: Bassène, Mamadou. 2003, page3.

CHAPTER ONE

***

Backgrounds

1- EEGIMAA IN CASAMANCE

The history of the establishment of the Eegimaa people in Mof çv' is partly based on mythical stories on the one hand and real facts on the other.

Thus, according to legend, all ethnic groups of Senegal were said to come from Mecca where, they originally all live in peace: Serer, Djola, Fulani, Mandingo etc. But once came the day when they had to separate from each other because it was said that they were cramped for room. So, they decided to break into pieces the «big black stone» used in pagan rituals and allegedly called in Arabic «siat». This same noun is found in the Eegimaa language and is the plural form of the word «eat» which is also a black stone but of an unsettled size. This stone is buried in the shrines.

Always according to legend, the Eegimaa people sojourned a long time in the ancient Kingdom of Gaabu with the Fulani and the Mandingo.

After their sojourn in the empire of Gaabu, the Djola left and moved northward until they reached the present region of Casamance precisely in a place called Burofay where they lived peacefully with their fellows the Ba
·nouk for a long period of time.

But according to Palmeri, at a certain period of their cohabitation, drought cropped up and life with their fellows Ba
·nouk became harsh leading to internal fights between them. The Ba
·nouk left Burofay and settled in Brin where they live still now. The Eegimaa people as to them, stayed there for a while before a hunter named Djiméguéré discovered the bed of a stream in a place somewhere between Badiat and Badjokotong. Once back to Burofay, he told the king about his discovery and the latter sent three other hunters one from each of the three clans composing the kingdom. They went there, came back and confirmed what was said previously.

All Eegimaa people left Burofay together under the king of that time named Djimanga and went westward to join Essil⁵. In their way, they stopped over at Gunih and waited for the king who left last bringing with him the fetishes called Ufulung.

Once in Essil, which is the first village to be occupied officially by the Eegimaa, the families began to spread out all around the new lands. Thus, the Bassène stopped in Essil. The Jiben clan, composed by different families: the Sagna, Manga, Sambou, Diatta and the Aghène continued further and stopped in Enampor; while the Batendeng clan which was the most numerous, occupied the villages of Séléki and Gheubeul.

5 For more details, see Map 3: Migration from Burofay towards Mof Ávi, page 7.

After a certain number of years spent in the newly discovered lands, a quarrel broke out in the royal family of Enampor, which caused its scission. This family broke up into two branches: the Manga remained in Enampor and the Sagna took refuge in Essil carrying with them their respective fetishes. From this moment on, the royalty belonged alternatively to Manga and Sagna families and the "kings" are selected once in Enampor and the following time in Essil.

This tradition of royalty in Mof Av' lived on until 1978 with the death of Affilédio Manga⁶ the last «king-priest-of-the-rain».

Map 3: Migration from Burofay towards Mofçvi

SOURCE: Palmeri, Paolo. 1995, page 77.

7

2- FRENCH IN CASAMANCE

⁶ See Appendix 1: Affiledio Manga, the last «king-priest-of-the-rain», page 43.

⁷ When writing this part, we mainly used researches by Palmeri (1995: 128-140) from where is extracted the major part of the historical quotations from the National Archives of Senegal.

In 1455, the Portuguese discovered the estuary of the river populated by the Ba
·nouk on the right bank and the Floup on the left one. The Venetian Alvise Da Cada Mosto, at the service of Portugal, baptized this place Casamansa (Casa which stands for house or ownership and Mansa for the name of the Floup's king of that time) which became later Casamance.

One of the first official reports mentioning the contacts between French settlers and the people of Mof ç vi stated the destruction of Séléki in reprisals to an action of plundering which the men of this village had carried out on Karabane in 1857.

th

In response, the French attacked and burned Séléki on January 26 , 1859, (ANS, 1016,25)⁸ and to conclude peace and put themselves under French protection, the village committed themselves giving three heads of cattle (ANS, 1D16,54).

At the end of 1886, as he did not yet perceive any intention on behalf of Djola to pay their debt, Lieutenant Truche decided to go to Séléki, accompanied by a small escort and about fifty volunteers of Karabane. After sailing up the Backwater of Gheubeul with a steam-driven boat, the men disembarked close to the village carrying a cannon and some grenades to intimidate the population.

But, once close to the first districts, they found armed villagers awaiting them. Truche thought of having to face only the men of Séléki but he was in fact, in front of the warriors of Enampor, Etama, Gheubeul and those of Essil who surprised him in a heavy crossfire and encircled him.

The soldiers panic-stricken, fled in all the directions and Truche himself was wounded by a poisoned spear. Rather than to fall between the hands of the enemy, he preferred to shoot himself in the head with the last cartridge that remained to him, while

9

his men withdrew in disorder, leaving on the ground deaths of thirteen people .

The French counterattack was quick. On January 5^th, 1887 the "Aviso Poder" approached the banks of Séléki and showered the village. The Djola people, too independent and not accustomed to live under any kind of authority, rebelled once again against the French settlers and attacked their fortified camp in Séléki during the night on May 17^th, 1906.

⁸ Archives Nationales du Sénégal (National Archives of Senegal) the number is that of the bookshelf and the bar code.

⁹ Christian Roche. 1976. Conquête et Résistance des Peuples de Casamance. Dakar-Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Africaines. Page 185.

Djignabo Bassène, one of the most influential priests of the Circumcision fetishes, accompanied by warriors such as Adjalubay, Alandisso, Khulécho, Abekker and some other volunteers, was killed that night. His death plunged the village in consternation and the following day, the Elders resigned to the defeat and gave to the French eight heads of cattle. At the end of that same day, almost all had finished paying the due tax.

CHAPTER TWO

***

Theoretical

Framework

1- EEGIMAA DESCRIPTION

The Eegimaa phonological system comprises 30 phonemes of which 20 consonants and 10 vowels¹⁰.

a- The Consonants

PLACE MANNER		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	+v	p	t	c	k
	-v	b	d	j	g
Nasal		m	n	?	?
Fricative	+v	f	s		x
	-v	v
Vibrant			r
Approximant			l	y	w

SOURCE: Bassène, Alain Christian. 2006, page 17.

Table 1: Eegimaa phonological consonants

The above phonological table was designed according to the distributional theory. This theory classifies the phonemes of a language according to the features which are present in all the allophones which realize the same phoneme. However, we recognize that the application of this theory poses problem when it comes to classify, in relevant features, the phonemes of Eegimaa. Indeed, the term `plosive' cannot be appropriate, actually, to classify the phonemes /p/, /b/, /c/ and /g/ because each of them have a plosive and fricative allophone.

The term `obstruent' could have been used in replacement of 'plosive' while making modifications concerning the places of articulation i.e. in classifying /p/ and /b/ in the

10 Alain Christian Bassène. 2006. ÇDescription du Djola Banjal _ Sénégal È, Lyon 2: Université Lumière, Thèse de Doctorat. Page 34

`bilabials', /f/ and /v/ in the `labiodentals', /t/ and /d/in the `apico -alveolars ' and /s/ in the `dorso-alveolar'. Unfortunately, a problem will arise concerning the classification of the phonemes /k/, /x/ and /g/ because the first two are all voiceless velar obstruents.

b- The vowels

The phonological vowels are 10. In the notation that we have adopted for the phonological transcription, the non marked vowels (with no accent) are the loose vowels (-ATR), while the marked vowels (provided with an accent) are the tensed vowels (+ATR).

	Tensed vowels			Loose vowels
Front		Back	Front		Back
'		iii	i		u
é		ó	e		o
	á			a

SOURCE: Sambou, Pierre Marie. 1989 page 194.

Table 2: Eegimaa phonological vowels

11

The graphs used represent tensed

here vowels and loose vowels in a

transcription adapted from the I.P.A according to the correspondence (=) below: tensed vowels: ' = i; é = e; á= ??; ó = o;iii = u

loose vowels: i = I; e = ?; a = a; o = ?; u = ?

It is worth noting that, in Eegimaa, length is for all the vowels ¹²

phonemic and

for all the consonants except from /r/, /x/, /w/ which have only one realization.

¹¹ This terminology is borrowed from Sambou (1989:192). The tensed vowel, unlike the loose one, is realized with the root of the tongue advanced and is perceived bass and dark.

2- FRENCH DESCRIPTION

This part of our work discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the
Parisian dialect. French is notable for its uvular ?, nasal vowels, and two processes

affecting word-final sounds: liaison, wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel; and elision, wherein a final vowel is elided before vowel initial words.

a- The consonants

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the one on the left represents the voiceless consonant and that on the right, the voiced consonant.

Place Manner	Bi-labial	Labio- dental	Dental- Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palato-alveolar		Velar		Uvular
					Plain	Round	Plain	Round
Nasal	M		n		?		?
Plosive	p, b		t, d				k, g
Fricative		f, v	s, z	?,?					?
Approximant					j	?	W
Lateral			L		?

SOURCE: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_phonology#Consonants)

Table 3: IPA chart for French consonants

The velar nasal /?/ is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words in final position such as parking or camping. The French rhotic has a wide range of realizations. [?], [?] (both the fricative and the approximant), [r], [?], and [÷] will all be recognized as "r", but most of them will be considered dialectal.

The approximants [j], [?] and [w] correspond to [i], [y] and [u] respectively. While there are a few minimal pairs (such as loua [lu.a] 'he rented' and loi [lwa] 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation.

12 Mamadou Bassène. 2003. «Some Aspects of Djola Eegimaa Phonology». Master Thesis. Saint-Louis: Gaston Berger University. p 31

b- The vowels

Standard French contrasts up to thirteen oral vowels and up to four nasal vowels.

		Front		Central	Back
		Unrounded	Rounded
Close		i	y		u
CloseÐmid		e	0	?	o
Open Ð mid Open	Oral	? (?:)	Ï		?
	Nasal	~?	(Ï~)		?Þ
					?Þ
	Oral	a			(?)

SOURCE: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_phonology#Vowels)

Table 4: French phonological vowels

Some speakers contrast a front /a/ vs. a back /?/ but there are wide differences amongst such speakers as to which words have which vowel. Similarly, some speakers distinguish between long /?:/ and short /?/; maître [m?:t?] ('teacher') vs. mettre [m?t?] ('to put').

The phonetic qualities of the back nasal vowels are not very similar to those of the corresponding oral vowels, and the contrasting factor that distinguishes /?Þ/ and /?Þ / is the extra lip rounding of the latter. Many speakers have merged /Ï^Þ/ with /?Þ /.

The schwa (/??/ also called "e caduc" ('decrepit e') and "e muet" ('mute e') is a mid central vowel with some rounding. It is always dropped ("muet") before another vowel (un(e) âme [yn.?:m] 'a soul'), and usually when following a single consonant (rapp(e)ler

[?a.ple] 'to recall'). On the other hand, it is usually pronounced when its omission would

Þ

create a cluster of three consonants or more (gredin [g???.d? ], une porte [yn p??t], une
porte fermee [yn p??.t??.f??.me]). This vowel is phonologically distinct from [Ï], but for

most native speakers of French, they may be pronounced identically. For example, in le
boeuf /l?? bÏf/ or demi-heure /d??mjÏ?/, most French native speakers won't make any

phonetic difference between the two vowels, pronounced identically most of the time (or even swapped).

3- LANGUAGES IN CONTACT

Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence one another. One of the main consequences arising from language contact is the influence exerted by one language on the other and in most of the cases that of the superstratum over the substratum. This influence can be mutual or non mutual. Other no less important consequences of language contact are: borrowing, mixed languages, or even language endangerment or death to mention only these few.

Change as a result of contact is often one-sided. Chinese, for instance, has had a profound effect on the development of Japanese, but the Chinese language remains relatively free of Japanese influence, other than some modern terms that were re - borrowed after having been coined in Japan. In India, Hindi and other native languages have been influenced by English up to the extent that loan words from English are part of day to day vocabulary.

In some cases, language contact may lead to mutual exchange, although this exchange may be confined to a particular geographic region. For example, in Switzerland, the local French has been influenced by German, and vice-versa. In Scotland, the Scots language has been heavily influenced by English, and many Scots terms have been adopted into the regional English dialect.

All languages can borrow words from a language with which they are in contact. Most of the time, these borrowed words undergo transformations in conformity with the phonology of the target language. For example, given that French words are stressed on the last syllable, the word walkman, which has an initial accent in English, the source language, is pronounced with a final French accent. However, there are also cases in which such an adaptation does not take place; consequently, the sound structure of the borrowing language undergoes a change. For example, further to the contact with English and Italian, French has affricate consonants today, as in match and pizza.

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages (both being clearly identifiable), normally in situations of thorough bilingualism. It differs from either a pidgin, a Creole and Code -Switching.

Concerning pidgin, it differs from it. The speakers of a mixed language are fluent in both languages, whereas a pidgin develops when groups of people with little knowledge of each other's languages come into contact and have need of a basic communication system, as for trade, but do not have enough contact to learn each other's language.

As for the second, they differ because a Creole language generally has one identifiable parent in addition to diverse input which cannot be traced to any particular language. While creoles tend to have drastically simplified morphologies, mixed languages often retain the inflectional complexities of both parent languages.

Finally, a mixed language differs from code-switching, such as Spanglish and Frenglish¹³, in that speakers do not need to know the source languages. The fusion of the source languages is fixed in the grammar and vocabulary, not left to the speaker. However, it is believed that mixed languages evolve from persistent code-switching, with younger generations picking up the code-switching, but not necessarily the source languages that generated it.

Language death is a recurring phenomenon in Sociolinguistics. We can consider that generally language death occurs in a linguistic situation of domination i.e. when a dominant language A replaces completely a dominated language B. However the complete substitution of a language leading to its death proceeds by stage. Three principal types of causes can be called upon to explain the death of a language: physical, political and socio -economic causes¹⁴.

4- REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

As pointed out by Yasmine Marzouk (1993), after the era of great monographs by Louis-Vincent Thomas in Ethnology (1959) or by Paul Pelissier in Human

13 Spanglish is a word coined to label the language composed of the mix of Spanish and English same case as Frenglish which is the mixture of French and English.

¹⁴ Henri Boyer. 2001. Introduction à la Sociolinguistique. Paris: Dunod. Page 70

Geography (1966): Ç La bibliographie sur les Djola pèche plutTMt par son abondance et par son éclatement, comme si les auteurs avaient adopté la structure de l 'objet étudié È [The bibliography on Djola is full of get-up-and-go rather by its abundance and its bursting, as if the authors had adopted the structure of the studied object].

Considerable works related to the Djola language and people in general and the Eegimaa dialect in particular, were consulted for the working out of this part of our research.

This part, as its name suggests, is an inventory of fixtures but also a central and essential part of every academic research. Mbaya (1999:21) understood that and stated it clearly saying the following: «this stage is essential since it helps to master the field of investigation and methodologies and to generate hypotheses or questions for further studies ». This stage is also important in so far as it allows us to set down the relationship between the existing document and our project and also helps us diminish the risk of coming up with unreliable conclusions.

Concerning the sociolinguistic situation of Senegal as a whole, Mbaya (2005) in his last work entitled Pratiques et Attitudes Linguistiques dans le Sénégal d'Aujourd'hui carried out a meticulous analysis on the situation of language use and attitude in Senegal and it appears in the light of his conclusions that the diversity of the national parlances is at the origin of a vast complex network of influences and interferences.

This work could be useful for us for a good reading of the current Senegalese sociolinguistic situation since it is, to some extent, an update of the relational life of the languages (official and vernacular) in Senegal.

In his book published in 1983 and entitled Le Francais et les Langues Africaines au Sénégal, and most precisely in the second part: chapter five, page 196, Pierre Dumont talks about languages in contact and does a clear and concise exposé of the diversity of the languages in presence.

This work will particularly call our attention because it presents the situation of the contact between the official language and the other national languages but focuses most on Wolof and Serer in some parts. Our interest in this study will be to push on further and try to see the real relationship between Djola and French in Senegal.

On the typically regional level, Caroline Juillard (1995) in her study carried out on the town of Ziguinchor, tried to bring out the major issues for an efficient management of multilingualism in urban environment. Her greater merit would be to be

able to decline two issues as well micro as macro-sociolinguistic, to have gone in search of the linguistic life of Ziguinchor citizens without any particular preconceived idea.

This work will be for us of great academic importance in so far as it describes the complex reality of multilingualism in action in the everyday life of the townsmen. It poses the problematics of the emergence of new models of behaviour within a composite society in rapid change, with fast and unstable influences.

Another work carried out on the Eegimaa population itself is that of Paolo Palmeri published in 1995 and entitled Retour dans un Village Diola de Casamance: Chronique d'une Recherche Anthropologique au Sénégal. In this book, the author, as a good anthropologist, penetrates deeply in the way of life of the Djola people of Mof Avi. The work of Palmeri is characterized by its ethnographic quality. Basing himself on a vast quantitative survey carried out in the majority of the villages of the area, he delivers invaluable data on the composition of the population and collects several oral versions of the history of the settlement in Mof çvi starting from the emigration of the inhabitants from Burofay.

Among the various works devoted to Eegimaa so far, we can add Sambou's «Approche phonologique du Djola Eegimaa» (1989). In this article, the author describes the phonology of Eegimaa. He provides phonological tables for both vowel and consonant phonemes, discusses the realizations of the phonemes as well as the various phonetic environments which condition the different allophones. Sambou also devises some morphophonological rules for an 'accurate transcription' of Djola Eegimaa. The work is valuable and the rules devised by the author prove very useful. This article also proposes to provide to the linguist all information on the paradigmatic phonemics and some practical rules for an exact phonological transcription of the language.

Alain Christian Bassène, after his Master (2001) and DEA (2003) dissertations devoted respectively to the phonology of Djola Eegimaa and the nominals in this same variety, has supported on October 13^th, 2006 at the University Lumière Lyon 2 in France, his doctoral dissertation on the following topic: «Description du Djola Banjal (Senegal)».

In this work, Bassène presents a general and as complete description as possible of the Eegimaa grammar. This description made it possible to review the study of phonology, morphophonology, morphology and syntax, in a typological and functional point of view.

Mamadou Bassène (2003), as to him, worked in the framework of his master dissertation on the following topic: «Some aspect of Djola Eegimaa phonology». He devoted his entire work to the vowel system. In so doing, he described the organization of Eegimaa vowel segments as well as their features. He also described the following phonological processes: vowel harmony, vowel elision, vowel coalescence, vowel lengthening, vowel juxtaposition and vowel insertion which are very common in Eegimaa.

Both works mentioned here above are of a high linguistic importance and the conclusions carried out will be very helpful to us mainly in the presentation of the Eegimaa language because nothing was apparently neglected.

To emphasize on the studies that stick much more than every other one, we have found the master dissertation of Ms. Adja Khady Thioune (2006) entitled «The influence of Wolof on African French and African English: a comparative study». In her work she studied the influence of Wolof on both popular French and English as spoken in the streets by ordinary people.

Following her example, we will devote our work on the study of the nature of the influence of a national language on French in Senegal. But the sole difference between our two studies will be that we will exclusively work on educated people.

Another study that is closely linked to our topic is the article of Mr. Edmund Biloa entitled «L'influence du Francais sur l'Anglais Camerounais». In this paper, he studied the contact between the two Cameroonian official languages namely French and English. He discovered a high frenchisation of the English language and pointed out that this phenomenon is due to the situation of a minority English-speaking community in a country where the vast majority of its citizens are French-speaking.

His paper, as pointed out previously, treats the contact of two official languages and the influence arising from that but ours will be somehow different talking about official and a vernacular language.

CHAPTER THREE

***

The Fieldwork

1- The field of investigation

Ziguinchor, capital of Basse Casamance, is located in an area of economical, political, cultural and linguistic contacts. Estimated to about 10,125 people all around Senegal in 2002¹⁵, the Eegimaa people live in the Casamance region in an area known as Mof çvi. The area is bounded by the Casamance River on the north, the Kamobeul BTMlon on the west, the Ziguinchor-Oussouye road on the south, and the Brin-Nyassia road on the East. The area is composed of a set of ten villages whic h are: Essil, Badiatte, Kamobeul, Séléki , Enampor, Batighére Essil, Batighére BTMlon, Elubalir, Etama and Banjal¹⁶.

As for the two remaining places of the research zone: Dakar and Saint-Louis, they are both towns where a great number of Eegimaa people are found. Dakar being the capital city of Senegal is also the favourite destination of the Djola who drifted away from Mof çvi in search for better living conditions or for studies. The Djola people found in the town of Saint-Louis are, most of the time, student at the university.

2- Research population

On the two banks of river Casamance, in the south of Senegal, between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, live populations labeled under the term of Djola. Approximately 550 000 (all dialects) in the 1990s¹⁷, Djola people constitute 5% of the Senegalese population.

The political organization of Djola people comprises a nobiliary chieftaincy which has nothing more than religious functions, advisory committees composed of old wise men who regulate the local litigations and heads of village s or cantons chosen by the administration and who have the special responsibility of collecting the tax. But the real power is held by adepts of animistic practices. But a part of the population adheres however to Islam or Christianity.

¹⁵ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SN

¹⁶ See Map 2: The Eegimaa speaking area, page5

1 7 E n cycl o p3/4d i a Universalis 1995 France S.A. All rights of intellectual and industrial ownership reserved.

3- The Sample

In the choice of our informants we tried to find a certain number of people capable of reflecting the general tendency (25 from Ziguinchor and 25 others from Dakar and Saint-Louis)¹⁸. All the informants fulfilled a certain number of criteria: they were Eegimaa native speakers, men and women aged of at least fifteen years and having attended school for at least seven years.

4- Tools of investigation

Concerning our tools of investigation, we used different methods and among these, we can mention: the questionnaire and the conversation recordings.

a- The questionnaire

The choice of our informants was done via a questionn aire. The paper in question comprises two major parts namely the identification and the questions. In the first one, people were asked to give personal information such as their family name, surname(s), address, age, sex and their birth country. As for the second part, people were asked a limited set of questions among which: their mother tongue, other spoken languages, if they have studied French and up to what level etc ¹⁹ . Once all those information collected, we picked up people likely to help.

b- The conversation recordings

For this research work, the topic chosen for our discussion was «education in the Eegimaa society ». By this topic, we mean t to talk about the specificities of education in the Eegimaa environment.

To foster discussion, we sometimes ask our informants to choose one ceremony or one aspect of their culture and tell us something about it. The main aim in doing so was not to test their knowledge concerning their culture but to make them fill free to speak so as we could record data for analysis. The conversation recordings lasted between five and seven minutes free discussions per informant.

18 See Appendix 3: The list of the informants, page 45. 1 9 See appendix 2: Questionnaire page 44.

CHAPTER FOUR

***

Data anal_ysis

And

Interpretation

1- CORPUS PRESENTATION

The corpus presented here after is the result of the recordings made within the framework of our fieldwork. It consists of all the information collected from our fifty (50) informants: 35 men (70%) and 15 women (30%) all aged between 15 and 66 years old and all educated native speakers of Eegimaa. The topic for discussion was about Education in the Eegimaa society.

Standard French	Integrated word	Context of production
1- avancer [av?^Þs?]	[v?^Þse]	Woli ni ?i v?^Þsewul maa^20		2- brousse [b?us]
[burus]	Ici on fait le buhut pour emmener les garçons dans la bourousse.	3- c'est-à-dire [s?tadi?]
[sa:dir]	Etre éduqué c'est ôtre sympathique saadir ne pas ôtre n'importe comment.	4- choisi [?wazi]
[?wazise:]	Achila a choisisee ga?ow gagu gaa Affiledio	5- chose [?oz]
[soz]	Ils veulent faire res soz leurs prop	6- commencé [k?m?^Þse]
[kumasime]	Woli ?i kumasime tale a-b-c-d ni lekkol yauye	7- comportement [k?^Þp??t?m?^Þ]
[k?p:?rt?m?]	Mbu kan nu ?uh copportema yola	8- comprendre [k?^Þp??^Þd?]
[k?mpr?ne]	?ama ni ?i ba? si sabu, Omoi babu matu comprene	9- d'abord [dab ??]
[da:b ?r]	Il y a daabor papa et maman au sein de la famille.	10- dépandre [dep?^Þd?]
[dep?nde]	Do pan depande ni buro? babu	11- dernier [d???e]
[d?r?er]	Bugo gu ?ilo dár?er	12- école [ek?l]
[lek:?l]	In?e ni ?oge buoh na halekalen lekkol katin an aam ni iniversite	13- l'historique [listo?ik]
[list?rik]	U ma?mé u etu?é listorik yaa Mof çvi

20 Sentences in Eegimaa, in the corpus, will be translated in the next part before analysis same for French ones.

14- inscris [?~sk?i]	[?skrive]		U escrive a?il ahu		15- leçon [l?s?^Þ]
[l?s??]	Nu li?ene su leso?i?		16- maman [mamã]
[mam:a]	Il y a d'abord papa et mamma au sein de la famille.		17- monsieur [m?sj0]
[mus?]	A muse ahu na oblige-oblige
18-papa [papa]	[pap:a]		Il y a d'abord pappa et maman au sein de la famille.
19-parce que [pa?s(?)k]	[pask?]		Paske c'est à cause des guerres tribales que ces gens-la ont quittes
20-politique [p?litik]	[polotih]		?i hat polotihay yo ?i kaneme.
21- pratiquement [p?atikmã]	[paratikma]		Au village, on est paratikma tous de la môme famille.
22-premier [p??mje]	[pr?me:]		Woli ?i comasime tale a-b-c-d, woli preme
23-problème [p??bl?m]	[p?r?bul?m]		No Sálagi gu ba?me e porobulem yauye
24- saleté [sal?t?]	[salt?:]		To nu ?uge an a saltee			25- suivre [s?iv?]
[si:ve]	U siiveutme		26- temps [tã]
[ta?]	Nu ?uge ni ta? yauyu		27- une [yn]
['n]	'n personne mal éduquée est un marginal.		28- université [yniv?rsite]
[iniv?rsite]	In?e ni ?oge buoh na halekalen lekkol katin an aam ni iniversite		29- voilà [vwala]
[wa:la]	Waala! Wolof hum nu munde uun		30- vue [vy]
[v']	De mon point de vue

This is the corpus to be analyzed in the next chapter. It is composed of thirty (30) words.

In this part, which is one of the most determining in the work because conclusions will arise from it, we will present and analyze the data collected from our informants. These following tables will help achieve our goal.

Table 5: The age of the informants

Age	15-25	25-45	45-65+	Total
Number	37	8	5	50
Percentage	74%	16%	10%	100%

Table 5 shows that the sample is relatively very young. Almost 3/4 of our informants are aged between 15 and 25 years old. They represent 74% versus 16% aged between 25 and 45, the remaining 10% being the age bracket 45-65 and over.

Table 6: Sex of the informants

Sex	Male	Female	Total
Number	35	15	50
Percentage	70%	30%	100%

In the table above, one can notice that 70% of the people interviewed are men versus 30% women. This is mainly due to the fact that men are far better represented in the schools and they were more available than women to answer our questions.

Table 7: Level of study of the informants

Level of study	Primary	Secondary	Tertiary	Total
Number	4	20	26	50
Percentage	8%	40%	52%	100%

Table 7 is about the level of study of our informants. It shows that all of them have been to school. The greater majority (52%) has reached the university level, 40%

rose the secondary level and only 8% of the sample stopped at the primary level. One of the most significant information to be retained is that our sample is highly educated.

Table 8: Languages spoken by the informants

Djola	Spanish	French	Wolof	Mandingo	Fulani	English	Creole	Mankagne	Portuguese
50	8	50	45	7	1	16	4	2	4
100%	16%	100%	90%	14%	2%	32%	8%	4%	8%

From this table, it is noticeable that ten languages are spoken by our informants. Among this set of ten languages, Djola and French are spoken by all of them and 90% speak Wolof. Further details show that almost all our informants are bilingual (Djola Ð French) or trilingual (Djola- French -Wolof).

Table 9: Mastery of Eegimaa

Languages	Eegimaa	Other (s)	Total
Number	41	9	50
Percentage	82%	18%	100%

Among the people interviewed, all are Eegimaa native speakers. But table 9 shows that nine (9) persons out of fifty master other languages better than Djola. Out of these nine informants, six master French, two Wolof and only one Spanish more than Eegimaa. The reason is that it is the languages, (except for Spanish) used at home with their parents and relatives.

To sum up, we can point out that fifty persons have been interviewed among whom 70% are men and 30% are women, all aged between 15 and 66 years. They all have been to school and 52% of them reached the tertiary level. They all speak, at least, two languages and the most spoken ones are Eegimaa, French and Wolof but they also speak other languages such as English,

Portuguese, Mandingo, Spanish etc. Concerning the mastery of the mother tongue, only 18% of our sample affirms mastering French and Wolof more than Eegimaa because they are the languages spoken in the family circle with parents and relatives.

2- MORPHOPHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

This part will take into account all the thirty words composing our corpus. The analysis will be carried out following the order in which the words occur in the presentation of the corpus. For the sentences in Eegimaa, they will be translated both in French and English before being analyzed in order to ease comprehension. As to those in French, they will only be translated in English as it is the language in which the analysis will be done. After each analysis, a rule is formulated if necessary.

1. «Woli ni ji v?~ sewul maa»

a. French: Nous avancâmes de ce côté-ci.

b. English: We advanced this side.

Þ [av?

sE] in standard French becomes [v?^Þ

sE] in Eegimaa. The phonological process

used here is truncation. As its name suggests, it consists in truncating or shortening the
word. Here the initial [a] was taken away so as [av?^Þ sE] becomes [v?^Þ sE]. We also have

another process called lexical hybridization consisting in using the features of different
languages in the same word. The word, as it is used in the spontaneous speech gives

Þ [v?

sewul] which, decomposed, will give [v?^Þ

se+wul]. The suffix «wul» comes from the

contraction of «woli» meaning «we/us» in Eegimaa.

The rule for truncation: Aff. + Rad. + Suff. x + Rad.+Suff

The rule for lexical hybridization: feature of L2 + feature of L1

2. «Ici, on fait le Buhut pour emmener les garcons dans la bourous»

a. English: [Here, we organize the Buhut²¹ in order to bring the boys into the forest].

Two processes are noticed in this sentence. The first is related to cluster simplification by vowel copying or simply called vowel intrusion/insertion and the second is an alveolarization. [bKus] becomes [burus]. Not only another [u] is

21 Buhut is the Eegimaa word for the big ceremony of Circumcision which is a central event in Djola societies.

copied/inserted between the two first consonants of the word but the uvular [K] is replaced by the alveolar [r] this process is commonly known as alveolarization.

The rule for alveolarization: [K] [r]

The rule for vowel intrusion/insertion: CCV CVCV

3. «Etre éduqué c'est être sympathique saadir ne pas être n'importe comment». English: [To be well-mannered is to be nice meaning not to behave any old how] [sEtadiK] becomes [sa:dir] by three processes. The first one is known as omission or

deletion, the second as alveolarization as seen in sentence 2 and the third as
lexicalization. Concerning deletion, it consists in omitting or deleting a sequence in the
word. The gap left here by the deletion of the sequence [Et] occasioned by the liaison is

filled by the immediate following vowel [a] which is lengthened. As for lexicalization, it is materialized here by the fact that the French wor d «c'est -à-dire» is composed of three syllables whereas in Eegimaa we have only two.

The rule for deletion: [sEtadiK] [sa:dir]

The rule for lexicalization: sE-ta-diK sa-dir

4. ' Achila a choizisee gajow gagu gaa Affiledio È

French: [C'est lui qui a choisi le nom Affilédio]

English: [He has chosen the name Affilédio]

The phonological process noticed in this sentence is lexicalization simply because

[fwazi] becomes [fwazise:]. [se] is added to the radical of the verb, the sound [e] being the marker of the past participle in Eegimaa.

5. ' Ils veulent faire leurs propres soz È

English: [They want to do their own things]

In this sentence, [foz] became [soz]. The change noticed here is that the palato-

alveolar sound [f] is substituted by the alveolar [s]. This phenomenon is known as alveolarization as already seen in some previous examples.

6. «Woli ?i kumasime tale a-b-c-d ni lekkol yauye»

French: [C'est nous qui avons commencé ici le a-b-c-d dans cette école] English: [We are the one who began a-b-c-d here in this school]

[k?m?^Þ se] becomes [kum?sime], we notice in this word phonological phenomena

such as closing, denasalization and cluster simplification by consonant copying.
Concerning the closing, we know that both [?] and [u] are back rounded vowels but the

first one which is mid-opened is substituted for a totally closed one. This process is called closing. As to denasalization, it is materialized by the substitution of a nasal sound for an oral one [?Þ] becomes [a]. In addition to this, the [m] of [kumasi] is reduplicated and added to the radical of the verb only for the sake of simplification and conjugation.

7. «Mbu kan nu ?uh kopportema yola»

French: [Essaie de voir son comportement]

English: [Try to see his/her behaviour]

[k?^Þ p??t?m?^Þ] becomes [k?p:?rt?m?]. In this word, we have a denasalization of both [?Þ ]

and [?Þ] which become respectively [?] and [?].The sound [p] is lengthened. We also have an alveolarization the uvular [?] is replaced by the alveolar [r].

The rule for denasalization: [nasal sound] [oral sound]

Examples: [?Þ ] [?]

Þ

[?] [a]

8. Ç ?ama ni ?i ba? si sabbu, Omoi babu matu comprene È

French: [Maintenant vous avez plusieurs types de savons, de détergents à la fin on ne comprend plus]

English: [Now you have different types of soaps, detergents that at last no one understands]

In this word, the French nasal vowel [?Þ ] broke up to be [?m]. The process

described here is known as nasal unpacking. As a nasal vowel is the contraction of an oral vowel plus a nasal consonant, the nasal unpacking, as its name suggest is its break into two distinct sounds because nasal vowels do not exist in Eegimaa but nasalized ones only. Another important aspect to be studied is the break or deletion of the cluster [nd?]

replaced by [ne] so as the [CCC] cluster becomes a [CV] one much more frequent in Eegimaa than the previous.

The rule for nasal unpacking: [nasal sound] [oral vowel + nasal

consonant]

The rule for cluster simplification by vowel copying: [CCV] [CVCV]

9. Ç Il y a daabor papa et maman au sein de la famille È

English: [There are first dad and mum in the bosom of the family]

In the pronunciation of the word «d'abord» the first phenomenon to be studied is that of the lengthening of the sound [a] which became [a:] this, is certainly due to the deletion of the liaison. We also have the alveolarization of the final [K].

10. «Do pan depande ni burong babu»

French: [Ceci dépendra de la vie]

English: [This will depend on life]

[dep?^ÞdK] in standard French becomes [dep?nde] in Eegimaa. The observation of this

word shows that we have two processes. In the first, we have a nasal unpacking with [?Þ]

becoming [an] and in the second, a cluster simplification by consonant deletion and
vowel addition. The [dK] at the end of the word is replaced by [de]. The consonant was

deleted because it would be difficult for an Eegimaa speaker to pronounce [dep?^ÞdKe:].

The rule for cluster simplification by consonant deletion and vowel addition:

[dK] [de]

11. «Bugo gu chilo dárper»

French: [Ils sont venus en dernier]

English: [They came in last]

In the pronunciation of this word, the [E] is replaced by [??]. This can be considered as

centralization because the front vowel sound [E] is substituted by the central one.
Another important phenomenon is that of alveolarization of the Parisian [K] but most

important and very surprising is the pronunciation of the final [r] due to the orthographic influence of French. This final [r] is written but not read in French this could have misled Eegimaa native speakers.

12. «Inje ni joge buoh na halekalen lekkol kattin an aam iniversite»

French: [Pour moi il a abandonné les études alors qu'il est à l'université] English: [For me he has left school while he is at the university]

This word presents features of a phonological process known as lexicalization as we have seen in many examples above. [ek?l] becomes [lek:?l] by fusion of the article and

the noun linked by the liaison. We also have the lengthening of the sound [k].

13. ' U ma?me u etu ?e listorik yaa Mofçvi È

French: [Si tu veux étudier l'historique du Mof çvi]

English: [If you want to study the history of Mof çvi]

[listo?ik] becomes [list?rik]. The [o] is replaced by [?] which is lower and more

opened. The lexicalization process in this word consists in its spelling in one word whereas in standard French it is written in two words. We also have an alveolarization [?] becomes [r].

14. ' U eskrive a?il ahu È

French: [Inscris l'enfant]

English: [Enrol the children]

[?

sk?i] becomes [ ?skrive] thanks to three phonological processes namely

denasalization, alveolarization and lexicalization. In the first one, the nasal vowel [?Þ ] lost its nasality replaced by [?]. Concerning the phenomenon of alveolarization, the velar sound [?] is replaced by the alveolar sound [r]. As for lexicalization, we noticed that the word has changed to become [?skrive] thanks to the deletion/substitution process. The final [?] of the infinitive in French was deleted and substituted by the [ve] for matters of simplification and conjugation.

15. ' Nu li?ene si leso?i? È

French: [As-tu appris tes lecons?]

English: [Have you learnt your lessons?]

This word presents features of either lexicalization [l?s?^Þ ] became [l?s??i] here

the [i] represents the second person possessive pronoun in Eegimaa it is placed behind the possessed object contrarily to French, and nasal unpacking [?Þ ] became [??].

16. ' Il y a d'abord papa et mamma au sein de la famille È

English: [There are first dad and mum in the bosom of the family]

[mam] becomes [mam:a] by two processes. The first is the lengthening of the nasal consonant [m] which is an allophone of [m] in Eegimaa and the denasalization of the final nasal vowel [].

17. ' A muse ahu na oblige-oblige È French: [Le monsieur été obligé] English: [The mister was obliged]

[m?sjø] [mus?]. In this word, we first have a backing of the central vowel

[??] which is substituted for a back [u] and then the depalatalization of the sound [j]. At last, we have the [] which is replaced by [?]. The phenomenon is known as opening.

18. ' D'abord il y a pappa et maman au sein de la famille È

English: [There are first dad and mum in the bosom of the family]

No special process is to be noticed here apart from the lengthening of the second [p]. So, the French word for dad «papa» as pronounced by the Eegimaa people, is a little bit heavier than as if it was done by French simply because of the lengthening of the [p]. One of the reasons that can account for this is that in Eegimaa, the original word for dad is `appa' with a slight insistence on the [p].

19. ' Paske c'est à cause des guerres tribales que ces gens-là ont quittées È

English: [It's because of the tribal wars that those people left]

[pa?sk?] becomes [pask?] by means of cluster simplification by consonant deletion of

the [?]. The reason of the deletion is justified by the simplification of the clusters in Eegimaa.

The rule for cluster simplification by consonant deletion:

[CVCCCV] [CVCCV]

20. «?i hat polotihay yo?i kaneme»

French: [Arrêtez cette politique que vous faites]

English: [Stop this kind of politics you are involved in]

The word «politique» as it is pronounced in this spontaneous speech is no longer [p?litik] but [polotih]. The closing of the initial [?] give [o]. The first [i] which is a front vowel is replaced by a back [o] by the process known as backing. The final velar consonant [k] is replaced by the glottal sound [h] which is not «muet» (mute) in Eegimaa. The process here is known as glottalization. Words ending in [ik] in French such as «boutique» and «politique», are realized [bitih] and [polotih].

21. ' Au village, on est tous paratikma de la meme famille È

English: [At the village, we are practically all from the same family]

In the pronunciation of this word, we have a cluster simplification by vowel copying the [a] is copied and inserted between two consonants [p] and [r]. The velar sound [?] is

replaced by the alveolar [r] causing then an alveolarization. The last thing to be reported is that the nasal sound at the end of the word is denasalized because nasal vowel sounds are not allowed, in word final position, in Eegimaa.

22. ' Woli ?i comasime tale a-b-c-d ni lek:ol yauye, woli preme È

French: [C'est nous qui avons commencé ici le a-b-c-d dans cette école, nous les premiers]

English: [We are the one who began a-b-c-d here in this school, we the firs t]

The only two things to be noticed in the pronunciation of this word are the alveolarization of the French velar [?] and the deletion of the [j] so as the word in

Eegimaa becomes [pr??me:] and not [p???mje].

23. ' No Sállagi gu ba?me e porobul?m yauye È

French: [Au temps oü les villageois de Séléki ont eu ce problème]

English: [At that time when people of Séléki got that problem]

The analysis of this word presents features of a cluster simplification by vowel copying. The [?] is inserted between the [p] and the [r] alveolarized and copied so as the

word is read simply and more easily. Another vowel to be inserted is the [u]

incorporated between [b] and [l]. The lexicalization is at the origin of the shift from [p??bl?m] to [p?r?bul?m].

24. Ç To nu ?uge ana saltee È

French: [C'est à ce moment là que tu vois une personne sale]

English: [It's at that time when you see a dirty person]

[sal?t?] becomes [salt?:] by the process of deletion of the central vowel [?]. But we

also have a lengthening of the short vowel [?] which becomes [?:].

25. «U siiveutme»

French: [Si tu ne suis pas]

English: [If you do not follow]

The most obvious phenomena to be noticed in this word are the depalatalization of the sound [?] replaced by [i:] and the deletion of the final uvular [?]. The gap left by the

deletion of [?] is filled by the lengthening of [i]. To this, we can add the lexical ization of the verb [s?iv?] which becomes [siive] plus [ut] which, put behind a verb, stands for the negation in Eegimaa and plus the [me] which accounts for the condition in this case.

26. ' Nu ?uge ni ta? yauyu È

French: [Tu vois en ce temps]

English: [You see at that time]

[tã] in French becomes [ta?] in Eegimaa by process of nasal unpacking. The single

nasal vowel is divided into two sounds: an oral vowel and a nasal consonant simply because not only we don't have nasal vowels in Eegimaa but it is not allowed in word final position.

27. ' In personne mal éduquée est un marginal È

English: [An ill-mannered person is a fringe of society]

[yn] becomes ['n]. The French back vowel [y] is replaced by the front vowel sound ['] simply because we do not have [y] in Eegimaa.

28. ' In?e ni ?oge buoh na halekalen lek:ol kattin an aam ni iniversite È

French: [Pour moi il a abandonné les études alors qu'il est à l'université] English: [For me he has left school while he is at the university]

The French word «université» is pronounced [iniv?rsite] in Eegimaa. The [y] sound is substituted for [i]. As we have said in the previous example, the [y] does not exist in Eegimaa.

29. ' Waala ! Wolof hum nu munde uun È

French: [Voilà! c'est le Wolof que tu as appris en premier]

English: [Well! It's Wolof that you learnt first]

[vwala] becomes [wa:la] by means of cluster simplification by consonant deletion. The simplification consists in the fact that the labio-dental consonant followed by a bilabial is omitted and the first [a] is lengthened.

30. ' Demon point de v' personnel. È

English: [To my personal standpoint]

The pronunciation of the French oral sound [y] is realized so as people hear the Eegimaa vowel sound [1]. The rounded vowel sound [y] in standard French is substituted for the unrounded vow el [1] of Eegimaa. This can be justified by the fact that in Eegimaa, the sound [y] does not exist.

3- REPORTING THE FINDINGS

After the analysis of all the thirty words composing our corpus, we discovered that the influence exerted by Eegimaa on French is mostly noticeable on the words borrowed from that language. During their integration within the Eegimaa language they are subjected to various transformations. These transformations are materialized through different phonological and morphophonological processes such as lexicalization, cluster simplification, vowel or consonant intrusion/insertion, deletion/omission, alveolarization etc. Apart from that major discovery others are also to be reported hereafter.

We have discovered that:

· The French sound [y] is not part of the Eegimaa phonological alphabet. When it occurs in this variety it is substituted for ['] as in [yniv?rsite] and [yn] which becomes respectively ['niversite] and ['n]. Any word in which it is found is undoubtedly a borrowing from French or other languages.

· Eegimaa does not have nasal vowel sounds but nasalized ones such as [an] in

[depande], [a?] in [ta?] and [??] in [l??s??].

· Nasal vowels are not allowed in word final position. If a nasal is to happen, it is either denasalized as in [k?p:?rt?ma] or nasally unpacked as in [l??s??] and

[ta?].

· Words in Eegimaa do not or rarely end with the central vowel [??]. French borrowed words and most precisely verbs ending with this sound are simplified or deleted as in [k?^Þ p??^Þd?] which becomes [k?mpr?ne] and

[dep?^Þd?] which becomes [dep?nde].

French words with a [CCV] cluster are simplified either by means of deletion as in [pa?sk?] which becomes [pask ?] or by vowel intrusion as in [b?us] which becomes [burus].

· In most of the cases, when a consonant is deleted for the sake of simplification, the following vowel is lengthened to fill the gap left as in [s?tadi?] which becomes [sa:dir] and [s?iv?] which becomes [siive].

GENERAL CONCLUSION

Almost a set of twenty local languages are spoken in Ziguinchor (Djola, Mandingo, Fulani, Portuguese Creole, Mandjak etc.) on which is superimposed the official language: French. The Djola language is, in Casamance, more than a vehicular language and enjoys a prestigious status. It is at the same time the language of the Djola people, the language of the South and the language of unification.

Our main objective in this work was to study, as clearly as possible, the relationship between Djola and French, particularly the influence exerted by the former on the latter. In so doing, we decided to focus mainly on the educated native speakers of Eegimaa a variety of Djola spoken in the Ancient kingdom of Mof çvi. This choice was motivated by the fact that they were the fringe of the society most closely in contact with the official language French.

To achieve the goal we had set ourselves, a methodology was designed consisting in first travelling to the south side of the country, the centre of the Djola language and civilization, in order to meet native speakers whose fifty were chosen to compose our sample. Then, we proceeded to the conversation recordings from which, the raw material for data analysis was taken. And at last, those collected data were analyzed and interpreted so as major conclusions could be drawn.

After a deep analysis of all the data, we came up with the major conclusion that Eegimaa, contrarily to what people may think, exerts a great influence on French which is not only the official language but above all the most prestigious in the community. That influence is mostly felt on the borrowed words, as they are integrated into Eegimaa; it mostly affects, as we have studied, the fields of morphophonology, syntax, vocabulary and even grammar, morphophonology being the most affected of all.

We discovered that:

· Eegimaa do not have nasal vowel sounds, contrarily to French, but nasalized ones.

· Whenever a word with nasal v owel is borrowed from French, it is denasalized when integrating the Eegimaa dialect. Concrete examples for that are words such as «comportement» [k?^Þ p??t?m?^Þ] and «commencer» [k?m?^Þ se] etc. which become

respectively «copportema» [k?p:?rt?ma] and «kumasi» [kumasi].

Illustrations: [?Þ

] [?]

[?] [a]

· French words ending with a nasal vowel sound are nasally unpacked because nasal vowel sounds are not allowed in word final position, in Eegimaa. Examples in point will be found in words such as «temps» [tã] and «lecon» [l?s?^Þ ] which

become respectively [ta?] and [l?s??] Illustrations: [ã] [a?]

[?

] [??]

· The standard French sound [y] does not occur in Eegimaa. So, all words in which it is found are borrowings from other languages. When [y] occurs in Eegimaa, it is substituted by ['] in words such as «université» [yniv?rsite] and «une» [yn] which become respectively «iniversite» ['niv?rsite] and «'n» ['n].

Illustration: [y] [']

Some difficulties can be mentioned: the major one was concerned with finding works dealing with a scientific description of Eegimaa. We succeeded, however, in finding some (Bassène 2003, Bassène 2006 and Sambou 1989) that helped us to achieve the goals we set ourselves from the beginning. Another one is that almost all the documents used in this work were written in French so as we were obliged to translate some part where needed.

Despite the problem of documentation, we found that Eegimaa was, linguistically speaking, a virgin land. This made our desire to keep on working on this variety grows up. Our interest, in future researches will surely be turned towards studying the influence of Eegimaa on English and why not comparing the results with the ones already found for French.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MAIN BOOKS

+ BERANGER, Ferraud. 1879. Les Peuplades de la Sénégambie. Paris : F. Leroux. + BOYER, Henri. 2001. Introduction à la Sociolinguistique. Paris : Dunod.

+ DIOUF, Makhtar. 1999. Sénégal : les Ethnies et la Nation. Dakar : NEAS

+ DONEUX, Jean Louis. n.d. Les Systèmes Phonologiques des Langues de Casamance. Dakar: CLAD.

+ DUMONT, Pierre. 1983. Le Francais et les Langues Africaines au Sénégal. Karthala.

+ GUMPERZ, J-J. 1989. Sociolinguistique Interactionnelle. Paris: L'Harmattan et l'Université de la Réunion.

+ JUILLARD, Caroline. 1995. Sociolinguistique Urbaine: la Vie des Langues à Ziguinchor (Sénégal). Paris : Editions du C.N.R.S.

+ MBAYA, Mawéja. 1999. Exploring Primary and Secondary Research. Dakar: ELU.

+ MBAYA, Mawéja. 2005. Pratiques et Attitudes Linguistique en Afrique d'Aujourd'hui: Le Cas du Sénégal. Munich: LINCOM Europa Gmbh.

+ PALMERI, Paolo. 1995. Retour dans un Village Djola de Casamance:

Chronique d'une Recherche Anthropologique au Sénégal. Paris: l'Harmattan. + PELISSIER, Paul. 1966. Les Paysans du Sénégal. Fabregue, Saint-Yrieix.

+ ROCHE, Christian. 1976. Conquête et Résistance des Peuples de Casamance.

Dakar-Abidjan : Nouvelles Editions Africaines.

+ THOMAS, Louis Vincent. 1958-1959. Les Djola. Essai d'analyse fonctionnel1e sur une population de Basse Casamance. Tomes I et II. IFAN, Dakar.

+ TRUDGILL, P. 1996. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. Penguin Books.

+ WEINREICH, Uriel. 1963. Languages in Contact. La Hayes : Mouton.

MASTER DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

+ BASSENE, Alain Christian. 2001. Ç Phonologie du Djola Eegimaa È. Mémoire de Maitrise, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ BASSENE, Alain Christian. 2003. Ç Les Nominaux en Djola Eegimaa È. Mémoire de DEA, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ BASSENE, Mamadou. 2003. «Some Aspects of Djola Eegimaa Phonology». Master Thesis. Saint-Louis: Gaston Berger University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, English Department.

+ HOPKINS, Bradley Lynn. 1995. Ç Contribution à une Etude de la Syntaxe Djola Fogny È. Thèse de doctorat de 3^ème cycle, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ KEBE, Moustapha. 2006. Ç La Domination Coloniale Francaise en Basse Casamance 1836-1960 È. Thèse de doctorat de 3eme cycle, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département d'histoire.

+ NDAO, Papa Alioune. 1996. Ç Contact de Langues au Sénégal, Etude du Code-Switching Wolof-Francais en Milieu Urbain: Approche Linguistique, Sociolinguistique et Pragmatique È. Thèse de doctorat d'Etat, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de Lettres Modernes.

+ SAMBOU, Pierre-Marie. 1979. Ç Djola Kaasaa Esuulaalur: Phonologie,

ème

Morphophonologie et Morphologie È. Thèse de doctorat de 3 cycle, Dakar: Université de Dakar, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de Linguistique générale. 211 pages.

+ TENDENG, Antoine. 1974. Ç Les Sources de lÕHistoire de la Casamance aux Archives du Sénégal 1816-1920 È. Thèse de doctorat, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département d'histoire.

+ TENDENG, Odile. 1984. Ç Contribution à une Phonologie du Djola Edungo È. Mémoire de Maitrise, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ THIOUNE, Adja Khady. 2006. «The Influence of Wolof on African French and African English: a Comparative Study». M.A Thesis. Saint-Louis: Gaston Berger University. English Department.

ARTICLES

+ BILOA, Edmund. <<L'influence du Francais sur l'Anglais CamerounaisÈ in Sudlangues numéro 2, Juin-Juillet 2003.

+ DONEUX, Jean Louis. << Hypotheses pour la Comparative des Langues Atlantiques È in Annales du Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale. n° 88, 1975, pp. 43-129.

+ DUMONT, Pierre. Ç Les Nouveaux Rapports entre le Francais et les Langues Nationales au Sénégal È in Réalités Africaines et Langue Francaise numéro 8, Octobre 1978.

+ JOB, A. << Une Analyse Sociolinguistique de l'Emprunt dans le Contexte Multilingue GambienÈ in Plurilinguismes numéro 9-10, juin-décembre 1995 C.E.R.P.L (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches en Planification Linguistique).

+ JUILLARD, Caroline, <<Répertoire et Acte de Communication en Situation Plurilingue : le cas de Ziguinchor au SénégalÈ in Langage et Société numéro 54, décembre 1990.

+ MARZOUK, Yasmine, << Du côté de la Casamance: Pouvoirs, Espaces et Religions È, in Cahiers d'études africaines, 1993, XXXIII (3), 131 : 485.

+ SAMBOU, Pierre Marie,<< Approche Phonologique du Djola EegimaaÈ in Annales de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, numéro 19, 1989. pp 191-205

WEBLIOGRAPHY

+ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SN 14^th, May, 2007 at 07:09

+ visited on 03 ^rd

http://www.freedomfaith.org , June, 2008 at 18:08

+ http://www.sudlangues.org visited on 20^th, May, 2008 at 16:55

+ http://www.uquebec.ca/diverscite visited on 24^th, June, 2007 at 16:45

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Portrait of Affiledio Manga the last «King - priest-of -the-rain»

Portrait by: Louis Eketbo Bassène (1992)

Appendix 2: The questionnaire

IDENTIFICATION

Nom :

Prénom(s)

Adresse :

Age : ans

Sexe : MASCULIN FEMININ

Pays de naissance : ..

QUESTIONS

+ Quelle est votre langue maternelle?

+ Quelle(s) autre(s) langue(s) parlez-vous et comprenez-vous?

+ Parmi ces langues y- a-t-il une que vous connaissez mieux que votre langue maternelle?

OUI NON

Primaire Secondaire Supérieur

Si oui

laquelle ?

Pourquoi ?

+ Avez-vous étudié le francais?

OUI NON

+ Si oui, jusqu'à quel niveau?

Appendix 3: List of the informants

FAMILY NAME	FIRST NAME(S)	AGE /SEX	ADDRESS	LEVEL OF STUDY
1- BADJI	Serghinho D.	Male / 25	Saint-Louis	Tertiary		2- BASSENE
Amiral Trésor	Male / 25	Banjal	Tertiary	3- BASSENE
Bienvenu Missa	Male / 24	Cite Conachap	Tertiary	4- BASSENE
Charlotte A.	Female / 18	Kameubeul	Secondary	5- BASSENE
De Gonzag Louis	Male / 23	Fass Delorme	Tertiary	6- BASSENE
Dembo	Male / 26	Grand Yoff	Tertiary	7- BASSENE
Djibril Michel	Male / 22	Niary Tally	Tertiary	8- BASSENE
Erik	Male / 25	Thiaroye	Tertiary	9- BASSENE
Erikol	Male / 65	Séléki	Primary	10- BASSENE
Etienne	Male / 54	Séléki	Primary	11- BASSENE
Florence D.	Female / 17	Séléki	Secondary	12- BASSENE
Florent F.	Male / 23	Grand Dakar	Tertiary	13- BASSENE
Frédéric	Male / 29	Sicap rue 10	Tertiary	14- BASSENE
Jean Christophe	Male / 17	Essil	Secondary	15- BASSENE
Juliette	Female / 18	Essil	Secondary	16- BASSENE
Louis Eketbo	Male / 55	Séléki	Primary	17- BASSENE
Mamadou Vieux	Male / 27	Thiaroye	Tertiary	18- BASSENE
Marius	Male / 25	Grand-Dakar	Tertiary	19- BASSENE
Sandrine Butai	Female / 24	Fass Delorme	Tertiary	20- BASSENE
Martin	Male / 24	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	21- BASSENE
Djibril Gachili	Male / 20	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	22- BASSENE
Ibra	Male / 66	Séléki	Primary	23- DIATTA
Barthélemy Josué	Male / 19	Essil	Secondary	24- DIATTA
Diouma	Female / 17	Kameubeul	Secondary	25- DIATTA
Félicité Nadège	Female / 18	Badiatte	Secondary	26- DIATTA
Pascaline	Female / 26	Sicap rue 10	Tertiary	27- DIATTA
Simplice	Male / 24	Grand Médine	Tertiary	28- DIEME
Ababacar Mbaye	Male / 15	Kameubeul	Secondary	29- GOUDIABY
Aliou	Male / 25	Dieuppeul	Tertiary	30- MANE
Berthe Awa	Female / 21	Parcelles Ass.	Tertiary	31- MANGA
Fansou	Male / 15	Enampor	Secondary	32- MANGA
Ndella Edith	Female / 18	Enampor	Secondary	33- MANGA
Robert Ousmane	Male / 17	Enampor	Secondary	34- MANGA
Eugénie A.	Female / 23	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	35- SAGNA
Amadou	Male / 17	Enampor	Secondary	36- SAGNA
Ibrahima	Male / 16	Banjal	Secondary	37- SAGNA
Moussa	Male / 17	Banjal	Secondary	38- SALL
Ousmane	Male / 25	Guédiewaye	Tertiary	39- SAMBOU
Assane Kassén	Male /26	Parcelles Ass.	Tertiary	40- SAMBOU
Léna	Female / 21	Guédiawaye	Tertiary	41- TENDENG
Charlotte	Female / 19	Batighère	Secondary	42- TENDENG
Danfa	Male / 41	Séléki	Secondary	43- TENDENG
Donat	Male / 26	Fass Casier	Tertiary	44- TENDENG
Gérard Ampa-B.	Male / 17	Batighère	Secondary	45- TENDENG
Madeleine	Female / 18	Enampor	Secondary	46- TENDENG
Malang	Male / 16	Séléki	Secondary	47- TENDENG
Souadou Dialika	Female / 17	Banjal	Secondary	48- TENDENG
Théodore	Male / 24	Sacré-Coeur	Tertiary	49- TENDENG
Youssouph	Male / 27	Ouakam	Tertiary	50- TENDENG
Ndèye Léna	Female / 26	Saint-Louis	Tertiary